In some applications, connector bodies that hold multiple contacts must be "free floating" to allow the contacts and body to shift sidewardly. One application requiring such shifting is in a system wherein a circuit module is inserted into a rack until a circuit board connector on the module mates with a connector on the rack. Then a heat sink plate and circuit boards of the module are shifted slightly to clamp the heat sink plate against a cold plate. During such clamping and consequent sideward shifting of the plate, the connector contacts do not shift and therefore must be "free floating" with respect to the circuit boards and heat sink plate. One prior art approach is to use a block-shaped connector body for holding the contacts, and to use a flexible circuit board or flexboard with conductive traces that each have one end soldered to a contact lying in the block and an opposite end engaged with a terminal on a circuit board. An arrangement of this type that could allow sideward shifting of a circuit board device, is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,401,369.
While the use of a block and flexboard enables the required amount of shifting for "free floating", it has disadvantages. The need to assemble the flexboard to the contact-holding body so as to assure electrical connection between each contact and a trace on the flexboard, requires considerable labor, increases the possibility of defects, and limits the density of contacts. A connector which could connect multiple contacts to a circuit board device in a manner to allow slight shifting of the contacts with respect to the circuit board device, which used a minimum of labor and allowed for high density placement of contacts, would be of considerable value.